


Almost like a song

by zmeischa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - The Battle of the Blackwater, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:58:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1337941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zmeischa/pseuds/zmeischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandor takes Sansa away during the Battle of Blackwater, and the rest is like a song. Well, almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SANSA

Many thanks to [kimberlite8](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberlite8) for beta-reading!

 

 “Mommy, mother, merciful Mother,” Sansa whispered under her breath. The city was burning with green flames behind her back, the sinister red comet was flying over her head, and in front of her the angry and terrifying man was riding his huge black horse.

She couldn’t remember why she’d agreed to elope with him. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she had agreed. She remembered him putting his sword to her throat. She remembered how he had cried when she sang to him. Had he forced her to leave? Probably. When she’d been packing her things she must’ve done it on her own accord, but later, in the stables, she hadn’t wanted to mount a horse. She had asked him to take her back, repeatedly, but did she really want to be returned to Joffrey and the Queen? It was like a dream in which one knew one was doing something strange and uncanny but forgot to be surprised. Sansa pinched her hand to make sure she wasn’t, in fact, dreaming; she felt no pain, then realized she had riding gloves on. 

Many years ago, when she was only four, she was scared of one of Father’s bannermen (Lord Bolton, mayhaps?) and Jory Cassel laughed and said: “Lady Sansa has a gut feeling”. She took such offence that she burst into tears – even when she was four she hadn’t liked to admit she had a gut – but Mother embraced her, patted her head and said that Jory had meant: “Lady Sansa feels things in her heart”. From that day on Sansa had been sure that she, like a heroine from a ballad, had a foretelling heart: she knew her friends from her foes, and should her beloved perish in a battle she’d feel it the same instant, give a sorrowful cry and fall dead.

Since then, Sansa had learned to mistrust her heart. It hadn’t cautioned her against Joffrey, hadn’t warned her against the Queen, hadn’t foretold her Father’s execution. Yet it was at this moment that she began thinking that Jory could’ve been right, that she really was able to foretell things, only not with her heart, and certainly not with her gut (her thirteen year old self still maintained that a true lady didn’t have a gu), but, say, with her stomach, which for some reason seemed to her a decorous part of the body. She listened to her stomach but the only thing she felt was an impending nausea from the horse’s jolts.

Her father had talked about Robert’s Rebellion but sparingly and reluctantly, however Sansa remembered his tale about some long night march when he and his men had slept on horseback. Sansa rarely recalled war stories that had no glorious deeds in them, but that tale became etched in her memory – she couldn’t believe it was possible to fall asleep on top of a horse, a living, breathing, galloping horse. “I’d never do that,” she thought and yawned.

She woke up when she hit the ground. The Hound dismounted, ran to her and started touching her.

“Look at me! How much is two and two?”

“I fell from my horse,” said Sansa in a dazed voice and whimpered with pain.

The Hound swore and grabbed her right foot.

“Where does it hurt? Here? No? And here?”

Sansa realized that he was very close to touching the place that did hurt.

“Four!” she exclaimed.

“Four of what?”

“Two and two is four. I’m bruised, held me to stand up, please”.

She knew her mistake at once – the Hound grasped her by the shoulder and roughly lifted to her feet. She should’ve kept him thinking she had some bone broken, if only for a while.

“Why the fuck can’t you keep in the saddle?” he asked and shook her. “The road is even, the horse if calm, what else do you need, silly girl?”

“I fell asleep,” Sansa whispered pitifully.

He screamed at her, asked why he had gotten involved with such a helpless hen, suggested leaving her in the forest to be eaten by wolves, shook her by the shoulders again and spluttered in her face, and all the while Sansa was standing with her head down, sobbing. At last he took his knife out and went towards the horse.

“Oh, please don’t kill it!” Sansa exclaimed.

The Hound came back and explained to her what a bloody fool she was. Then he punched the horse in the belly, pulled the saddle-girth tighter with the help of another hole he pierced with his knife, took sable-bags from his destrier, put them of Sansa’ horse and said roughly:

“Come here”.

Sansa saw a leather belt in his hands and moved back. The Hound looked at the belt and swore again.

“You idiot, you think I mean to whip you? Come here, I tell you.

He mounted, dragged Sansa up in front of himself and tied her to himself with the belt.

“Sleep all you like now.”

Sansa thought she’d never fall asleep now. It hurt her to sit, she’d been very frightened by her fall, and the Hound stank of sweat, blood, sour wine and vomit. Not one heroine of the ‘being rescued from the besieged city” songs had suffered these indignities. To comfort herself Sansa began humming the ballad of Florian and Jonquil and fell asleep at the penultimate verse.


	2. SANDOR

He woke up as someone was trying to take the saddlebag from under his head, and, still half-awake, thrust his sword in that direction. The little bird squealed, Sandor felt the sound like a white-hot needle in his temple, moaned and opened his eyes.

The girl was clinging to the tree, white as flour. Her skirts were pinned to the trunk with the blade. Sandor swore and pulled at the sword. He had a hangover, which meant that his head hurt, his eyes hurt, there was a taste like brass in his mouth, and he barely remembered what had happened yesterday. Seemed like he’d deserted. And stole the little bird. And nearly stabbed her early in the morning.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked roughly.

She blinked, obviously scared.

“I’m sorry ser, I mean, my lord … I didn’t mean to wake you, but I need some cloth”.

“What for?”

She bit her lip and blushed.

“I’m bleeding”.

Sandor remembered that at night the numskull had fallen from her horse, and grew cold with terror.

“From where?!”

She blushed harder.

“It’s my moon blood.”

Without saying a word Sandor reached into the bag, pulled out the first cloth that was close at hand (his shirt, as it happened), tore it in four, and thrust it into the little bird’s hands before he went to vomit in the bushes.

Last night he, probably, had some kind of a plan. Well, last night he’d been drunk witless and scared shitless. And so somehow this morning he found himself fuck knows where accompanied by a maiden fair and without any ideas about what to do with her. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He had one, rather precise idea, but you couldn’t fuck a virgin when she had her first moon blood on her, could you?

The little bird came back and was searching the bags again.

“What the fuck do you want now?” he snapped.

The way she looked at him you could believe she’d found her father’s head in the bag.

“I forgot my comb.”

That was more than Sandor could bear. He had faced wildfire three times in a row, his legs almost failing him as they shook with sheer terror, then he had kidnapped the girl he’d been desiring for the past year, and now he found out that he had to tie his desire with a knot for a couple of days more. The missing comb proved the last straw.

He shouted.

What he said was long and filthy and made him even angrier with himself than he’d been. The girl was standing with her head down and blinking her tears.

“Stop bawling!”

She sobbed piteously.

“Quit your bawling, I tell you! Take your bag, put in on your horse, keep moving, damn you! Do you want to be caught and dragged back to Joffrey?”

The girl heaved another sob, took the bag and meekly dragged it to her horse. Sandor swore, undid his breeches and pissed on the nearest tree.

He took care to put the wine-bag on his horse, and after the fifth gulp his head cleared somewhat. After the tenth gulp he hatched a plan: he’d take Sansa Stark to Lord Harraway’s Town, board the first ship to the Free Cities and bugger off the fucking Seven Kingdoms. Her woman business would be over by then, and the cabin was bound to have a bed, or a berth, and he’d buy some sweet wine and lemoncakes – though the Riverlands were probably short of lemons at that point, and of cakes as well.

He glanced at her, saw that she was looking piteously at the bag of victuals, and called himself an ugly name. He was so hung-over he could barely stand thinking about food, and eating was out of question, but the little bird hadn’t been drinking with him last night, and he’d driven her onto the horse before she’d had a chance to break her fast. Sandor found a ring of smoked sausage in the bag, cut it in half and gave the piece to her.

“Thank you, I’ll eat later,” the girl said politely.

Sandor nearly swore at her for expecting lemoncakes in the middle of nowhere and disdaining a perfectly good garlic sausage, but then he saw how tightly she was clutching the reins. If she was any kind of a bird, she certainly was a chicken. Sandor has never seen a person unable to eat on horseback before.

“We’ll get to that clearing and dismount,” he rasped. “We don’t need you toppling down again, right?”

At the clearing he gave her a loaf of bread, some sausage and cheese, swore at her for having no knife and shoved his dagger into her hands. Then he sat farther off so not to smell food. He still had a hangover and that made him contrite. He’d always thought he was no worse then any noble knight with a head full of tales about honor, but Ser Barristan, for example, would hardly yell at a scared girl for losing her comb. Sandor picked a piece of wood from the ground, took a small knife from his boot and began to carve. After the little bird broke her fast, he awkwardly thrust the newly-made comb into her hands.

“Thank you,” she said courteously and twisted the comb in her hands uncertainly. To tell the truth, the thing was more fitted for horse’s tail than for maiden’s tresses. “May I do my hair now?”

Sandor swore again, this time under his breath.

“Sure. But I bet you don’t know how, your servants did it for you all your life”.

The girl stared at her feet.

“Poor little bird, calling yourself a wolf. If a put you into a hen-coop, the hens would peck you to death. Sit down with your back to me, and no squealing.”

He took all the pins from her hair, brushed her hair carefully (or so it seemed to him) and braided it into two plaits.

“I combed you like a wench from Westerlands. ‘Tis the only way I know, sorry.”

She patted her plait.

“Thank you, se… thank you. It is beautifully done.”

“My sister taught me,” he grumbled. “When I was four, I used to run to her room every morning and help her braid her hair. She once played a prank and braided _mine_.”

The little bird smiled.

“When Gregor saw it, he hit my face on the wall so hard he broke my nose, and cut my hair with a dagger to stop me looking like a wench.”

She stopped smiling and tears welled into her eyes. She was one for crying, that girl.

“Why are you bawling now?” he asked angrily.

“Arya… my sister… she threw an orange at me and spoiled my dress… and I said… I said… that I wished she was dead…”

“If people died of words this place would be a cemetery. Cut that bawling.”

His words had no effect. She was crying louder and louder.

“And Jon… he went to the Wall and I didn’t even say goodbye to him, and I’ll never… never see him again… And when we were leaving, Bran was unconscious… and I didn’t kiss him goodbye… and Theon killed him… and baby Rickon too… he was so tiny… and I’ll never… never… see…”

Sandor embraced her awkwardly, she hid her face in his jerkin and wept with all her might. He patted her head gingerly.

“What do you mean – you’ll never see anyone? Where do you think I’m taking you? I’m taking you to Riverrun. Your mother’s there, your brother’s there, you are a princess now, little bird, did you know? Don’t cry.”

The worst thing was that even now, as she was sobbing at his chest like a ten-year-old, he was still hot for her.


	3. SANSA

_I wish I were married to him_ , Sansa thought. It was a very strange thought. She didn’t wish to be married to the Hound (to Sandor – she reminded herself, the day before they had agreed that she’d call him Sandor), he’d probably make a terrible husband. Only if they were married, Sansa would be able to hold him, pat his head or his back. It seemed to her that he, like a real dog, would be calmed by it – and she wished him calm, if only a little.

The first few days after their elopement from King’s Landing Sansa was unbearably unhappy. Riding made her legs ache, compounding the hurt she had inflicted upon herself when she fell that first night, and now it was painful to sit. She slept badly: the ground was hard, the cloak under her didn’t help, and lying in the open air at night was scary. The rivers began cooling already, and washing in them was terribly cold. Sansa washed her smallclothes every day but she probably did it wrong because they remained grey. She was also tortured by the necessity to go deep into the woods to keep from Sandor the sight of her smallclothes drying on the bushes – she was afraid to lose her way. Once she left a very pretty lacy shift in the woods and failed to find it in the morning: either some beast stole it or Sansa didn’t remember the route to the bush. She’d felt too ashamed to ask Sandor for help and spent the day sighing and blushing at the thought of some passer-by finding her smallclothes in the woods. In the evening it dawned at her that Lannister men could’ve found that shift and she spent half a night awake with fright. And, on top of that all, Sansa was always hungry. They had food, even a lot, but it was monotonous: cheese, smoked sausage and smoked meat, oats and dried peas. The bread soon grew stale and unappetizing. In the evenings Sandor cooked something which was neither soup nor gruel. Once he threw the remains of the dried cheese into the pot, poured some wine over it, melted it all and suggested Sansa dipped the crust into that mixture and ate it – he said it was the favorite dish of shepherds from Westerlands. Sansa barely took several bites; she thought the shepherds from Westerlands very undemanding. Sandor would daily reproach her with wanting lemoncakes, but what she really wanted was a cup of milk and an apple. A big, red, juicy apple.

But the worst thing was Sandor screaming at her. He swore at her for being tired of riding, for being hungry, for not eating enough, for crying, for wanting to cry… He called her a fool, a spoiled brat, and once, when Sansa refused to mount her horse, he took his sword and threatened to slit her throat. Each time Sansa would choke on her tears without saying a word: she blamed herself for feeling cold, tired, uncomfortable and sad. There were moments when she really wished herself back at the Red Keep – Joffrey also used to call her a fool and threaten to kill her, but at least at the Red Keep she had been well-fed and had as much hot water as she wanted.

Several days past Sansa saw a village and asked shyly whether they could buy some fresh bread and apples there. Sandor replied gruffly:

“I won’t let you go alone, and I can’t let people see me, with my face being so memorable. What a pity, little bird, that it was me who took you away and not someone more handsome, right?”

Sansa struggled for her answer. It suddenly dawned on her at he was angry not at her but at himself, that he was blaming himself for making her sleep on the ground, not letting her wash her hair properly and not providing enough apples for her.

“I’m very glad that it was you who took me away, se… Sandor,” she said courteously.

After all, he was taking care of her as much as he could: he was feeding her, guarding her and taking her to Riverrun, to see Mother and Robb. Comparing him to Joffrey was unfair. If only he swore less! And… drank less.

Sandor would begin drinking from his wine-bag early in the morning and get quite drunk in the evening. Sansa was always afraid that he’d fall into the fire when cooking the food. But those were the good days, on bad days be would begin talking in a thick voice soon after noon, he would demand songs from Sansa and then stop, hobble the horses and fall asleep under a tree. The first time he did that Sansa made good use of the occasion and washed his spare shirt. When Sandor woke up he swore at her for playing at washerwoman, and wouldn’t stop near running water since then.

Now he was lying under the tree, his mouth agape, snoring loudly. Sansa was sitting next to him, mending his shirt, and thinking that it would’ve been good to marry him. Only for a while, till they reach Riverrun. Then she’d be able to wash his smallclothes along with her own and dry it near the fire, and not go into the woods. Then she’d be able to tell him that swimming didn’t equal bathing. Then she’d probably dare to take away his wine-bag…

Suddenly she thought that she’d probably marry him in earnest. In the songs a knight who’d saved a fair princess was usually rewarded with lands, castle, and the princess’s hand in marriage. That idea made Sansa shiver and say to herself severely that life wasn’t a song: Robb would betroth her to some noble lord in exchange for an army and support in his war. But songs, she thought, _resembled_ life, only the kind of life with all the boring, dirty, cruel and painful pieces removed. Mayhaps she would have to marry her savior, only he’d be not a handsome noble knight but Sandor, a sweat-smelling drunkard who – Sansa signed – snored very loudly.

She listened. Sandor was really snoring with all his might but under his rasping and grunting she could hear something that resembled… the barking of dogs! Sansa jumped up. She had seen enough hunts to know the way hounds bark when they follow a trail. Their trail. She touched Sandor’s shoulder gingerly. He snored and waved her away like a fly. Sansa gave the sword in his belt a cautious look, went behind him, inclined and held his nose with two fingers.

Sandor woke with an inarticulate yelp.

“What the…? Little bird, are you out of your…”

Without saying a word Sansa pointed into the direction of the barking. She was so scared she lost her voice.

Sandor jumped up.

“What are you waiting for? Quick, go untie the horses, mount your mare, move, move, move! No, wait, help me here!”

He had taken off his armor before falling asleep and now was trying to put it on in a hurry. Sansa began helping him but had to stop, her hands were shaking so much. Sandor caught her wrist.

“Little bird, listen to me. If they catch up with us, I’ll kill them. You saw me kill before, right? Whoever’s running with those dogs, he’s no match for me. Look at me. Remember what I promised to you? I said that I’ll keep you safe. That’s what I’m going to do right now, keep you safe. And now take a deep breath and help me with that breastplate”.

He didn’t have to kill anyone that day: the hunter, a bald stocky man in mended leather clothes, didn’t dare to attack an armed mounted knight. He’d followed them for a while, crying querulously that’s he was going to bring help, then he fell behind.

As they rode away, Sandor uncorked his wine-bag and poured its contents on the ground without saying a word.


	4. CATELYN

Catelyn sighed and straightened Lord Hoster’s pillow. There was some noise in the courtyard, Catelyn looked out of the window and saw a tall man next to a huge black horse. _Sandor Clegane_ , she remembered, _a Lannister man_. She sat at her father’s bed again and hugged herself. The Queen had sent him to make some bargain in exchange of Jaime Lannister but there was nothing to trade anymore.

Edmure appeared on the threshold and motioned her.

“What’s happening?” she asked feeling her heart wrung with worry.

Edmure smiled widely.

“Come with me and you’ll see. No, don’t ask, I won’t tell. Come!”

Catelyn left her father’s bedroom obediently and went downstairs. Her brother kept turning to her and smiling encouragingly. That should’ve reassured her, but for some reason Catelyn was becoming more and more anxious.

They went into the courtyard. In was noisy there, Smalljon Umber was swinging his arms and joyously yelling, and in the middle of the courtyard Robb was holding in his embrace a tall red-headed girl in a dirty dress. Catelyn stopped and clutched Edmure’s hand, it seemed to her she was going to lose her footing and fall any moment. The girl looked her way and screamed:

“Mother!”

Catelyn reached out her arms.

She didn’t now how long she had stood holding Sansa but probably it was but a brief instant because Robb said very close to her:

“Well, Clegane, your mistress doesn’t lay a great value on your skin.”

Sansa shivered and slipped out of her mother’s embrace.

“No, Robb, you don’t understand! No one sent him, he _saved_ me! He came into my room the night Lord Stannis besieged the city, and he said he wanted to take me away. He saved me. And before that, when we were attacked on the streets of King’s Landing, Sandor cut off the arm of the man who wanted to grab me. And he defended me from Joffrey, and didn’t hit me even once. He isn’t a true knight but he saved me nonetheless. I’m grateful to him.”

The man she was talking about laughed hoarsely. Catelyn looked at him. He was transfiguring before her. Huge, ugly, yet he she saw neither his terrible scars nor his cruel grin: he was a man who had saved her child. The next moment Catelyn would kneel in front of him and kiss his hand but Grey Wind got there first.

The direwolf waddled to Clegane and smelled his hand. The man stepped back involuntary.

“Fuck!” he rasped, either in fear or in awe.

Grey Wind lifted his head, looked him in the eyes and then with one swift movement rose to his hind legs and put his paws on Clegane’s shoulders. The man gasped and staggered. Grey Wind stared into his face and grinned showing white claws. Clegane bared his teeth in return. Then he lifted his hand and scratched the direwolf behind the ears.

“You _dog,_ ” he said, grinning. “You beast! Scared me, right? Scared me? You _wolf_!”

“Grey Wind,” Sansa whispered, “My darling! Do you remember me? Come, boy, come!”

Of course, Grey Wind remembered her: he ran to her, dropped her on the ground and licked her face clean whining happily. Sansa held him by the neck, laughed and then wept.

Catelyn felt someone touching her shoulder. She turned – it was Clegane.

“Milady, correct me if I’m wrong but when your grey friend came to say hello you were just going to promise me a castle and lands and a bag of gold, right? All very well, but what about hot water and a supper for starters?”

Catelyn nodded. As she was holding her child, restored to her by some miracle, she felt herself in the presence of gods, and it robbed her of will and strength. Clegane’s words returned her back to earth, she knew she could stand, walk, think, order.

In her room Sansa gave an ecstatic look to the bath full of hot water and began unbraiding her hair.

“Did they teach you to dress you hair that way in King’s Landing?” Catelyn asked smiling.

“No, it was Sandor, he used to braid it every morning. Oh, how I long to wash my hair!”

Catelyn helped her to unlace her dress.

“Look, we are of the same height. You are almost a woman grown, my girl.”

Sansa nodded proudly. “Yes, I flowered in King’s Landing. Mother, why didn’t you warn me it’s so nasty?”

Catelyn kissed her temple. She let a child go to the capital, she got a maid back, a maid with sizable breasts and hips that betokened easy child-bearing. _A woman grown_ , she thought with a pain in her heart, _she will marry soon and I’ll lose her again._

Sansa took her dress off, pulled her shift over her head, lowered her smallclothes and stepped over it. Catelyn struggled for breath. The white skin on Sansa’s inner thighs was painted with bruises, pale-green and purple.

“That man, Clegane, he didn’t offend you in any way?” she asked and was surprised to hear her voice sound so even.

Sansa heaved a happy sigh and lowered herself into the hot water.

“Oh, Mother, no! He took care of me, fed me, defended me and even,” Sansa lowered her voice “showered me an herb to keep lice away. Did you notice the way my hair smell? That’s from using this herb. Will you look at my head after I wash? I’ll _die_ if I have lice!”

“Of course, my dear. I will leave you for a while but be back presently.”

Sansa soaped the cloth and began scrubbing her hands vigorously.

“Yes, Mother. But please return and help me wash my back.”

“I will,” Catelyn promised. She left the room and leaned against the wall. Her girl, her child! Could gods be so cruel? _Yes, they could_ , she answered herself. Gods took two of her sons away, why not give her back a dishonored daughter?

Riverrun didn’t hold a bath large enough to contain Clegane, and his knees were protruding over its wooden sides. He made no attempt to cover himself when he saw Catelyn enter his room.

“Widowhood must be hard for you, milady,” he said with a crooked smirk.

Catelyn shuddered. In the first months after Ned’s death every bawdy joke, every lewd hint addressed to her had been painful like stabs: it had meant that her husband, her protector was gone and she was left defenseless. It had stopped to matter since: she had lost two sons, what could indecent words do to her? But Catelyn imagined her girl, her innocent child alone with this rude stallion, and felt sick with revulsion.

“Is Sansa still a maid?” she asked.

Clegane stopped smiling.

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I’m asking you.”

He grabbed the side of the bath and for a moment Catelyn believed he was going to rise and attack her, naked as he was. Then his glance softened.

“You are right, milady, and I’m a fool. You shouldn’t ask her that. Yes, she’s a maid, Joffrey was never alone with her. He threatened to put a child into her as soon as she flowered, only her moon-blood came together with Stannis.”

“I was asking not about Joffrey but about you.”

Clegane grabbed the side of the bath again. Catelyn saw his muscles tense.

“Do you think, milady, that I raped her on the road and then brought her here where her brother would cut my head and my balls off?”

 _Sandor braided my hair every morning_ , Catelyn thought. _He took care of me_.

“No,” she said, “I don’t think you raped her.”

“So what the fuck…” Clegane smirked again. “Are you asking whether she _gave_ herself to me?”

His voice sounded strange, as Catelyn was torturing him and he was trying to hide his pain.

“I saw bruises on her legs.”

“Bruises? Here?” he passed his hand along his inner thigh, upwards from the knee. “That’s saddle-sores, your daughter is a shitty rider. Trust me, milady, if she _gave_ herself to me, the next time you saw her she’d have two children in her arms and a third in her belly.”

Catelyn left the room and closed the door. She didn’t know what came over her. How could she believe her Sansa, her gentle naïve girl in love with that boor? Even if his face was not burned so terribly, a lady values honor, wisdom and kindness in a man, and Catelyn saw nothing like that in the naked man behind that door – only bravery and fierceness, beastly virtues.

She came back to Sansa who had washed her hair and now was soaping her knees with abandon.

“My legs are all bruised,” she said regretfully. “These are saddle-sores, I sit on the horse the wrong way. May I keep my grey mare? I grew accustomed to it.”

“Of course, my dear.”

“Sandor is a great rider, it’s as if he was born in the saddle. It’s a good thing that such a mighty warrior will be on Robb’s side, isn’t it?”

Catelyn came closer and patter her head.

“My dear girl, your brother will pay Sandor Clegane well, but I doubt he’ll let him join our host. The Lannisters are our enemies and Clegane swore allegiance to them. He broke his vows, who will stop him from betraying his new master as well?”

Sansa opened her mouth, ready to object, but said nothing. Her face became smooth, calm, inexpressive.

“Whatever you say, Mother. Could you please wash my back now?”


	5. SANDOR

_Here I am, gone from one boy to another_ , Sandor thought.

“In return for saving my sister you will be rewarded with gold,” Robb Stark said. “Also a castle and lands, when the war is over.”

 _When pigs fly_ , Sandor translated. Thankfully, the gold seemed to be forthcoming right now.

“My sister told me that you wish to pledge you allegiance to me, it that true?”

The little bird clenched her hands and stared at the floor. It seemed that Sandor was wrong to upbraid her for being a bad liar. If they were alone he’d give her an earful for ordering him about, but they were in a hall full of people and Sandor let himself be glad that she had wanted to keep him.

“A dog needs a master, and you are the easiest choice now.”

“ _Your Grace_ ,” added some large bumpkin from the corner. “When you are talking to the King, you must call him _Your Grace_.”

Sandor shrugged and tucked both hands into his belt.

“The Lannisters were your masters and you betrayed them. I’m glad that you did but how am I to know that you won’t betray me tomorrow? What is your honor worth?”

_Boy, why don’t you go and fight with a wooden sword?_

“Nothing. My honor is free of charge, goes with my sword. And my sword won me forty thousand gold pieces at the Hand’s Tourney.”

A red-headed man who resembled the little bird somewhat laughed suddenly.

“He’s right, Robb… Your Grace. A knight’s honor is priceless, if you put a price to it, it becomes valueless.”

 _Edmure Tully_ , Sandor realized. _Another song-lover, what do you say._

“Did you have your sword when you deserted from the Battle of Blackwater?” Stark asked calmly. The little bird gave him a reproaching look.

“A man cannot fight wildfire. Send me against living men and I’ll make them dead.”

“Your brother Gregor serves Lannisters and ravages Riverlands by their orders.”

Sandor grinned. He knew that all this chatting about honor was just a warm-up before the real talk. He had been right to screw the Lannisters after all.

“Say one word and I’ll bring you his head. Your Grace.”

The direwolf at Stark’s feet lifted his head and growled but his master remained imperturbable.

“If you wish to serve me and to fight under my banner, you must swear that you won’t search for you brother and won’t try to kill him.”

Sandor couldn’t believe his ears.

“A kinslayer is cursed in the sight of gods and men,” Robb went on calmly. “I shall not invoke the gods’ wrath upon me by putting brother against brother. Swear or take you money and be gone.”

Sandor opened his mouth to tell the king where he could put his money, but then he saw the little bird giving him an imploring look. _Please_! he read the begging petition on her lips.

If Stark had said, _Swear you won’t kill Gregor and you can wed my sister_ , Sandor would’ve given it some thought. But to relinquish the vengeance he’d dreamed about for twenty years, just to stay close to a silly girl who’d be married to some lord or other any day now?

Each time she had cried, or sighed, or washed her clothes in a river, or choked herself on stale bread, Sandor had been dying to hold her, comfort her, kiss her… and most probably fuck her in the nearest bushes. Instead he would bark _Cut that sniffling_. Instead he had taken her to Riverrun. He was sure she hated him: for swearing, for getting drunk as a pig, and mostly for being a burned dog instead of some handsome noble knight. He hadn’t doubted that in Riverrun she’d chirp something polite to him, staring at his boots, and the next moment she’d forget Sandor Clegane ever existed. And now she was asking him to stay – only the price was too fucking high.

 _Leave, you fool_ , he thought. _Take your money and go. Forget about her_.

“All right then,” he muttered reluctantly.

Stark looked at him expectantly - probably he thought that Sandor would fall to his knees and begin sprouting words about honor and nobility. The little bird beamed. The direwolf at Stark’s feet rose, stretched, went to Sandor and nudged him in the hip – what are you waiting for, give something to the poor old doggy!

“I do hope that you keep your word longer than you give it,” Stark said. “Grey Wind!”

Grey Wind turned and ran to his master, munching on the crust Sandor gave him.

Sandor felt an uneasy displeasure rising from all the ends of the hall, from northerners and riverlords alike. They didn’t want him. He was a stranger, Lannister dog, turncloak, kennelmaster’s grandson, upstart, brother to Gregor Clegane, all ugly things. There was nothing new in that, he’s always been a dog at the high table, but he used to be shielded by Joffrey. Now Sandor knew that he’d have to show his teeth or the pack would tear him apart.

He had the occasion that very evening in the bathhouse. Sandor felt someone was staring at his buttocks. There were places in King’s Landing where that meant _Hello, stranger, wanna make an acquaintance?_ In Riverrun it betokened a fight. Sandor put soap on the bench and turned. A man called, as he remembered, Smalljon Umber was standing behind his back.

“Lost somewhat, friend?” Sandor asked calmly.

Smalljon grinned.

“Just trying to see your tail.”

Of all the possible ways to start a fight that was surely the dumbest.

“Were you dropped on your head as a child?” Sandor enquired.

“No tail? What did you put between your legs as you were fleeing from the Blackwater?”

Sandor took a swing at his jaw. Anyone smaller and he would’ve been knocked out cold, but Smalljon, whom the blow threw against the wall, jumped up immediately, roared and rushed at Sandor. They grappled and rolled on the floor, growling and bleeding. Sandor exulted in it. Ever since Blackwater he’d been dying to let his rage loose on someone, to prove to himself he was a man, a killer. The little bird had asked him, rather gingerly, not to be so angry. She should’ve seen him now. He bit into Smalljon’s shoulder and unclenched his jaws only after a cruel punch in the gut.

At last the fat Wendel Manderly brought a bucket of cold water and poured it over them as is they were a couple of fighting dogs. They unclenched for a moment, ten men dragged them apart and kept throwing cold water over them till they stopped growling and trying to get at each other’s throat. Smalljon rose, took a bucket of water, poured it over his head, snorted and laughed.

“That one has a strong punch, huh?”

Sandor rinsed his mouth and spit blood.

He was left alone after that. He was still a foreign body, but that body didn’t have to guard its back.

He expected Stark to find a husband for his sister any day now, but the King in the North was biding his time for some reason, and soon Sandor found out why. During a sally Lord Edmure Tally stood in front of an oak next to him and spoke about his niece still not being betrothed.

“You brought her after the dinner was eaten,” Edmure reasoned as he was watering the rough bark. “Robb could’ve given Sansa to Tyrell’s elder son but Margaery is betrothed to Joffrey now. Dornishmen agreed to wed a Lannister as well. There is Robert Arryn, of course, but Catelyn was adamant that she’d not let Sansa marry him. She says the lad has fits and drinks from him mother’s breasts at six years old, I wonder where she got that fable.”

“So he wasn’t weaned at four then,” Sandor said. He laced his breaches and left Lord Tally to contemplate the oak.

He didn’t especially care for Lady Stark but it was good to know that once in a while someone actually thought about the little bird’s happiness. When he snatched an occasion, he went to Lady Stark and thanked her. She gave him a curious look.

“Are you thanking me for doing my duty as a mother? Well, it is nice to hear.”

“Your duty,” Sandor grumbled. “You know, milady, I’ve seen a handful of people who did their duty, and they got no joy out of it. Mayhaps you should do your duty less and your pleasure more. Box your son’s ears for his stupid wedding, for example, I can see your fingers itch for it.”

Lady Stark crossed her arms on her chest.

“If I went around boxing people’s ears…”

“I’d be the first in line?”

He turned his uninjured ear to her.

“Myself, more likely. Believe me, it’s not doing my duty I regret, it’s failing to do it. You say that duty brings no joys – it brought me fifteen years of happiness with the man I loved. Only children dream of doing whatever they want, and even children find out there’s no happiness in that.”

Sandor thought that in fifteen years the little bird would be just like her mother.


	6. SANSA

“I mislike that,” Lady Sybell grumbled. “Will you two wear identical dresses? It is not proper, the Queen must look different from her subjects.”

From the day they first met, Sansa had decided that she misliked Lady Sybell.

“You are perfectly right, milady, the Queen must be dressed fitting with her station. That is why we’ll cut the neck on Jeyne’s dress a little lower, make the sleeves a little wider, I’ll embroider the bodice with silver and we’ll put white roses on the skirt. It will look very beautiful, grey and white, the Stark colors. And I shall embroider ivy branches on my dress, here and here. No one will even know ‘tis the same cloth.”

Jeyne carefully patted the blue-grey silk.

“So beautiful,” she whispered in awe. “Sansa, but it must be wrong. I should not care about dresses while there is war.”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Lady Sybell protested. “Your husband is the King, he must give you the best of everything.”

In her heart of hearts Sansa also believed that a queen must have an abundance of dresses, silk, velvet and satin dresses adorned with lace, embroidery, ribbons and precious stones. Why else would you want to become a queen? But Robb was at war with Lannisters and probably he was a tiny bit too preoccupied to care about Jeyne’s dresses.

“Of course there is war,” Sansa said. “But our knights don’t have any need of that length of silk, do they? There will still be at war whether we make that dress or not.”

“Yes, but is it good to waste my time on trifles when I could be doing something useful?”

Sansa kissed Jeyne’s cheek. “You are such a darling! Of course we will do something useful. We will take care that the castle doesn’t lack supplies, and we’ll devise good dishes for dinner, and we’ll tend the wounded… And then we’ll sit quietly in the corner and embroider”.

Sansa was very glad that Robb had married like in a song: he had taken Jeyne’s castle and she had taken his heart. Still, as always, life only seemed to bear resemblance to a song, upon closer look one was bound to discover some disappointing differences. First of all, Sansa had thought that the girl who had captured the Young Wolf’s heart would be much more beautiful. Not that Jeyne was plain, no, she was very pretty, but the songs never sang about a courageous king falling in love with a very pretty girl. Also, ballads rarely mentioned the bride’s parents unless they had tried to kill the amorous hero. No bard had sung about the knight bringing home his young wife _and_ his mother-in-law. And usually after the king from the songs was wed he would defeat all his enemies, not lose half of his army because his main ally’s feelings were hurt.

Still, Sansa couldn’t be really angry with Jeyne for not resembling the heroine of songs. One couldn’t be angry with Jeyne, she was far too sweet, kind and shy. And what’s more, Jeyne was sure that Sansa Stark was the cleverest, the bravest and the most beautiful girl in the world.

From the day she was born Sansa was accustomed to be praised. Her parents used to be pleased to find her so well-mannered and obedient. Her septa used to boast of her stitching. Her father’s bannermen used to pat her head and called her a pretty girl. Jeyne Poole and Beth Cassel used to sit at her feet to catch her every word. The daily praises she received had been as habitual and as undistinguished as bread.

She had spent the last two years among the people who thought she was a fool, a traitor’s daughter, a nonentity. Joffrey would call her his lady and then ordered her to be beaten. She had learned to distrust pretty words, she had forgotten what praise, admiration, approval felt like, and she hadn’t even felt the lack until Sandor brought her to Riverrun where Jeyne Westerling sat at her feet and began catching her every word.

Sometimes Jeyne’s admiration seemed to Sansa if not false – there was nothing false about Jeyne – then exaggerated. For example, Jeyne admired her household skills. Yet Sansa daily discovered anew that in this realm she sadly lacked both knowledge and experience. The list of her inadequacies was great: she had become hopelessly enmeshed in the calculation of the amount of cloth needed for fifty new bed sheets, once she had been the reason there hadn’t been enough bread at the feast, and the lemoncakes baked according to her instructions turned out flat and burned. She would daily ask Mother for help, but Jeyne regarded even that as a heroic deed, worthy of a song or two – she herself was in awe of Lady Catelyn. _She is only my mother_ , Sansa wished to say, _of course I’m not afraid of her_ , but she had said nothing because Jeyne lived in fear of her own mother.

In Jeyne’s eyes Sansa was braver then Queen Nymeria. Only the bravest maid in the world could’ve patted the fierce direwolf, taken him by the ears and fearlessly kissed his nose.

“It’s only Grey Wind, he’s a darling,” Sansa would persuade her in vain. Jeyne would still give a start and move back each time the direwolf would try to sniff her hand.

“You are not afraid of Clegane either, are you?” Jeyne asked her once.

Sansa was surprised.

“Of course I’m not. Why should I be?”

Each time Robb’s host was returning to Riverrun, Sansa would look from the rampart. First she would seek her brother, and than a huge man on a black courser. In the evenings, sitting in her room, she would compose a ballad about a valiant hero with a burned face who told his secret to a beautiful princess, saved her from a monster and took her home to her mother and brother.

Like all songs, it bore little resemblance to real life.

“His face…”

“Scars are a warrior’s best adornments.” Sansa felt how paltry it sounded. “No, such scars cannot be an adornment, of course, but a homely man can still be brave and noble. Remember the ballad of Florian and Jonquil?”

“His brother does terrible deeds in the Riverlands.”

“Sandor didn’t choose his brother,” Sansa countered.

“If I had a choice, I’d choose you,” Jeyne said. “I’ve always wanted a sister like you”.

“So have I,” Sansa replied and embraced her.

It was true - each time after a quarrel with Arya she used to imagine a perfect younger sister who was the very image of Jeyne Westerling.

It was true - but at the end of that day Sansa went to the godswood, knelt in front of the heart tree and begged the gods: “Please, let Arya be found!”


	7. CATELYN

The sky was overcast with cloud from the very morn and by dinner-time those clouds poured forth a nasty drizzle. Both Freys, wet after the crossing, bore a stronger then usual resemblance to ferrets. Catelyn gave them dry towels and offered hot wine. She should’ve been glad they came, it meant that Lord Frey was ready to temper justice with mercy and to give back his support and his swords to the King in the North. And Catelyn tried to be glad, but each time she looked at Sansa her heart ached. Her daughter was meant to marry in the interest of her house someday, but why now, why like that? Sanse herself was smiling courteously to the guests as if they were not here to bargain about her.

“As a token of my regret about the offence I caused to Lord Frey I shall give Darry as Sansa’s dowry,” Robb said.

“Darry?” Ser Merrett repeated with distrust and scratched his chin.

“Gregor Clegane killed the last Lord Darry, these lands are escheat now, they belong to me and I give them to my niece,” Edmure confirmed.

“Why, thank you, dear lords! The castle, and the lands, and Gregor Clegane to boot! Ain’t our Ryger a lucky man?”

His brother, Ryger, nudged him with elbow.

“This is very kind of you,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously, “but, you see, the Lannisters took Darry and won’t give it back till you win the war, and, you see, I want to marry soon.”

Ryger took great care to ascertain that they saw things his way. Ser Merrett was very rude and familiar, probably wishing to avenge Freys’ honor, but Ryger felt awkward, he shrank in his armchair, tried not to look anyone in the eye and began each phrase with “This is very kind of you.” Catelyn tried to look at the bright side: Sansa would be happier with a timid and shy husband than with a boor like Merrett Frey. But still she was plagued by a foreboding.

“I shall always be glad to have Sansa and her husband in Riverrun,” Edmure said.

“This is very kind of you, but you see, Lord Frey wants Lady Sansa to live at the Twins. And you see, she’ll need gowns and other things…”

He was humming and hawing so much Catelyn took pity on him.

“Of course my daughter will receive a dowry worthy of the king’s sister.”

“As much gold as she weights!” Ser Merrett demanded. Ryger nudged him again.

“This is very kind of you, milady. You see…”

And then Catelyn recognized him. “ _I’ve had three kings to guest in my life, and queens as well, do you think I require lessons from the likes of you, Ryger? Your mother was milking goats the first time I gave her my seed_ ”.

“Ryger,” she whispered. “Ryger Rivers. You are Lord Frey’s _bastard_.”

Robb clenched his fist. “Did you come here to jest with me, Ser Merrett?”

Ryger shrunk but Merrett Frey wasn’t so easily cowered.

“You see, milord, true-born sons are not strong enough to stomach dog’s leftovers.”

Grey Wind who was lying at Robb’s feet rose his head, bared his teeth and snarled. Robb put his hand on the direwolf’s neck.

“What are you trying to say, Ser Merrett?”

“Oh, spare me! Everyone knows the Hound spoiled the girl on the way to Riverrun. Not that I wouldn’t in his place, your sister is a juicy piece. Ryger here has all the luck, right?”

Edmure grabbed his sword. “How dare you?”

Sansa turned a shade of pink but her face remained calm and courteous. “It is not true, ser,” she said in an even voice. “No true knight would repeat such vile gossip and besmirch an honor of a lady, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Ryger shrunk even farther. “Don’t be wroth, milady, if you could be so kind. You see… I’d treat you well.”

Robb turned to Edmure. “Uncle, please, bring Sandor Clegane here and don’t say a word to him or to anyone else about what’s been said here.”

Catelyn patted Sansa’s hand. “Have no fear, my darling, no one will believe that slander. I know you are innocent.”

_But I doubted her. I am her mother, I know her better than anyone else does – and I doubted her. How can I judge Merrett Frey for this vile gossip if I was ready to believe it myself?_

“Did you call me… Your Grace?” Clegane asked from the threshold. He would always pause before pronouncing those two words, as if trying to say: _I don’t care about kings and graces but I know you hold to that ridiculous title so you may have it_.

“I did. Ser Merrett Frey accuses you of taking my sister’s honor. Do you have anything to say to that?”

Clegane measured Ser Merrett with his gaze and put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“A thing or two, like.”

“Your weapon won’t help you here. Answer”.

Clegane’s hand remained on the hilt.

“What does your sister have to say about it?”

“I’m not asking her, I’m asking you.”

“Well, I’m glad to know that you value my word more than the word of your father’s daughter… Your Grace. I feel deeply honored. Ser Merrett is lying, and when you order to cut his lying tongue out and stuck it into his ass I’ll be glad to participate.”

“I thought I was a guest in you house and you let your dog threaten me!” Ser Merrett was obviously displeased by the course of the talk but still behaved defiantly. “Of course he says he’s not guilty but who’d trust a turncloak’s word?”

Clegane bared his teeth.

“You’d like a trial by combat, mayhaps? You’ll get that, in shovels.”

“This won’t happen,” Robb said calmly. “Lord Frey’s sons are under my protection, if either of them perishes I’ll be dishonored”.

“Well, at least you have no doubts as to who’d win.”

Ser Merrett understood he won’t be made to take part in a trial by combat and cheered up. “Who told you I’d fight _you_? You’re a dog, not a match for a knight. You ask for a trial by the gods – you get that. I demand a trial by fire. Let him take a red-hot iron in his hand, the gods will protect him is he’s innocent.”

It seemed to Catelyn she was fear in Clegane’s eyes. She knew it was high time she interfered – but she was late. Before she had time to say something Sansa jumped from her place and stood in front of Clegane, shielding him.

“No!”

Ser Merrett grinned lewdly.

“I can see your sister liked the dog’s caresses.”

Catelyn saw Robb’s jowl become heavy but his voice stayed calm.

“Sansa, sit down and keep quiet.”

“I won’t! He saved my life, he took me from the Red Keep, and you’ll repay him by _torture_? What kind of king are you?”

“I told you to sit down and keep quiet.”

Sansa had smartened herself up for the first meeting with her future betrothed: she put on her new blue-grey dress, did her hair prettily and spend hours looking at the mirror. She probably believed she looked like a woman grown. Now Catelyn was seeing that woman in front of herself, a woman whose will was harder then steel.

 _She is also a Stark_ , she thought, _she’s also a wolf. Gods, shall I see my children at each other’s throats?_

“Sit down and keep quiet? Robb, do you believe Ser Merrett cares whom Sandor Clegane beds? That’s me who stands accused, that’s me you should judge on the trial by gods. Will you order _me_ to be trialed by fire?”

“The first man who brings a hot iron close to her will lose an arm,” Clegane promised raspily. “Are you out of you fucking minds?”

Catelyn rose.

“Ser Merrett, tell your lord father that I’m very grateful that he is ready to forget his wrongs and make his peace with us. If Lord Frey doesn’t believe my daughter worthy of his true-born son we shall find another way to expiate our guilt, so help us gods. I wish you an easy and safe return to the Twins.”

“I shall tell Father he should send a woman next time, let one skirt talk to another, as men don’t get a say in that castle,” Ser Merrett grumbled.

“I wish you a safe journey, Ser Merrett,” Robb said coldly. Ser Merrett shrugged and went to the door. The forgotten Ryger trotted in his tow. “Clegane, you may leave.”

Clegane looked around the room with a hard expression and left.

Robb rose, took a deep breath and suddenly stuck the wall with his fist.

“Robb,” Catelyn began fearfully.

“Gods give me patience! Sansa, are you proud of yourself?”

Sansa, who’d lost all the resemblance with wolf by that time, moved closer to her mother. “I protected an innocent man. Father would’ve done the same.”

“Father is dead! I’m your brother, your king, and when I tell you to sit down and keep quiet… Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Lord Frey sent his bastard here to humiliate me, he invented that cock and bull story about you and Clegane to make me more pliant, and if only you’d shut up when I told you to… But no, you had to be a heroine from a silly song! Do you realize you’ve just confirmed all the filthy gossip Merrett Frey might care to tell? Tomorrow all the Seven Kingdoms will know Robb Stark’s sister jumped to protect her lover in front of everyone. Who’d marry you then? Why do I need you now?”

Catelyn staggered as if he’d struck her in the face. “ _Need_ her? Tell me, Robb Stark, why did you ever need Bran? Why did you need Rickon? Of what use your own mother is to you?”

The door opened. If Dacey Mormont realized how inopportune she was, she didn’t let it show.

“Your Grace, there is a man at the gates of Water Tower demanding to meet you. He says… he wants a ransom for Lady Arya.”


	8. ARYA

The thing Arya enjoyed most was bread. She gobbled two bowls of mushroom soup, devoured a sausage, gorged herself on fish in green sauce, but her gaze still reverted to the fresh white bread which was just lying there for the taking.

At the roasted venison Arya felt she was full. She put the half-bit piece of bread on the table next to her, then she changed her mind and tried to hide it in her pocket. However, it appeared that her dress had no pockets, and Arya spent some time poking her skirt with bread till Mother took her by the hand and showed her a pouch on the belt. Arya remembered the way a true lady should behave at the feast and felt like hiding under the table but it seemed like she wouldn’t be scolded tonight.

She looked around the high table. Robb, all grown up and with a beard, was sitting at the head, next to Mother. On his right hand sat a girl with dark hair, his wife (Arya tried to grasp the idea of Robb having a wife). Next to her – a handsome auburn-haired man, Uncle Edmure, then some sour-faced woman, another uncle, Brynden, and after him – Sansa. _Look with your eyes_ , Arya thought.

“Mother, why does Sansa sit so far?”

By the expression of Mother’s face Arya understood that it was a wrong question to ask, but then Mother looked at Robb and it was clear he was the one who was going to be scolded.

“Because your brother has no need of her anymore.”

Robb opened his mouth to answer, then probably remembered he was a king and a man grown, turned away and threw a bone to Grey Wind. Arya bit her lip. If they sent Sansa to the farthest end on the high table for some fault, they were sure to put _her_ at the lowest table, next to squires and stable-boys. Or maybe they’ll simply chase her away…

All the rooms in Riverrun were occupied by knights and soldiers, so Arya was made to share Sansa’s bedroom, and, contrary to all expectations, Sansa didn’t whine about Arya always kicking in her sleep. As they were getting ready to sleep, Arya chewed on her lip then asked, “Sansa, why does Robb have no need of you?”

Sansa took a comb, decorated with a silver fish, from her hair.

“Don’t say that. Of course he needs me, he is my brother, I love him and he loves me too.”

“But why then..?”

“Ser Merrett Frey said that I… did something bad. It was not true, and Robb knows that, but if Ser Merrett tells it to everyone then other people, those who don’t know me well, might believe him. You see, Arya, when people say that a maid did bad things, it is hard for that maid to marry a rich and powerful lord, and Robb needs to find a husband for me because he needs allies. That is why he got angry and said he has no need of me. You see? When people are angry, they often say something they don’t mean, and they always repent afterwards. That is why it is very important to be composed and never to get angry, especially with the people you love. And Arya, please, when Robb wishes to find you a husband, don’t argue with him. He needs our support and we must obey him as our king and elder brother.”

Arya sat on the bed and pressed her chin to her knees. She wasn’t very eager to trust Sansa who was liable to snitch to Mother or Robb. If only Jon was here… But Jon was in the north, in the Night’s Watch, far away, and Sansa was still a wolf from Arya’s pack, that’s what Father used to say.

“Sansa, I also… did some bad things,” she began half-heartedly. “Mayhaps no rich and powerful lord would want to marry me either. What will happen to Robb then?”

Sansa took a brush and began brushing her hair. A hundred times in the morning, a hundred times at the evening, just like Septa Mordane used to preach.

“Don’t talk nonsense, you’re a child.”

Then she dropped her brush and rushed to Arya who moved back on the bed. “When you were in the woods, with those outlaws, did they touch you? Did they touch you here?”

Sansa put her hand on Arya’s crotch. Arya moved farther back. _I was beaten_ , she thought, _I could’ve been killed, and now you all ask is if anyone touched me between the legs?_

“No one touched me!”

Sansa heaved a sigh of relief and mussed her hair the way Jon used to do.

“That’s good then. Don’t ever frighten me like that!”

“Yes, but I did…”

Sansa embraced and kissed her. Arya was too stunned to resist.

“It doesn’t matter. Life is not a song, Arya, sometimes you have to do bad things in order to survive. So if you told a lie to someone, or took food without permission, nobody’s going to scold you. The main thing is that you are alive and well.”

She let Arya go, stood up and began unlacing her dress.

 _I killed people_ , Arya thought. _I stabbed one with my sword, and cut the other’s throat, and I ordered two more killed, and then others yet, and Jaqen smeared me with their blood_. She said something completely different.

“Sansa, you have teats!”

Sansa blushed and covered herself with her hands.

“Polite people call them ‘breasts.’ And there is nothing special in them, yours will grow soon, too.”

Arya patted her chest where nothing showed an intention of growing and decided she didn’t need any teats. She could easily go without.

“And you’re fat!”

Sana dropped her dress on the floor.

“Arya, stop!”

“Your bum is fat,” Arya said with pleasure.

“A lady must never talk like that! I have wide hips, it means that I’m going to give my lord husband many healthy sons one day. Get undressed, please, or are you going to sleep in your clothes?”

That was exactly what Arya was going to do – she hadn’t undressed at night since the day she’d fled the Red Keep. But Sansa looked adamant against it and Arya heaved a sigh and began fumbling with her laces.

Someone scratched at the door, once, then twice, Sansa smiled, went to the door and let Grey Wind in.

“Robb turns him out at night, because of Jeyne,” she explained. “Poor little wolfie, made to leave the cosy-cosy bedroom.”

Grey Wind jumped on the bed and lay there. Sansa looked at her feet shame-facedly.

“I let him sleep with me sometimes, when I have bad dreams. No, Grey Wind, go down!”

“Don’t make him go,” Arya asked. She hugged the direwolf by the neck, hid her face in his fur and inhaled. “He smells good.”

 _He smells like Nymeria_ , she thought.

Grey Wind licked her cheek and then pointed his muzzle at the pouch on her belt. Arya remembered hiding a piece of bread there and wavered. She didn’t like going to bed without any food in store but she couldn’t refuse to share with the direwolf either. She sighed and gave him the bread.

“You carry bread in your pockets as well?” Sansa asked. “At least don’t feed him in bed, the sheets will be full of crumbs. And take your dress off!”

In the morning they broke their fast with fresh bread, gruel, goat cheese and honey. Arya, shrinking under Mother’s and Sansa’s gazes, hid a piece of bread in her pouch. After they ate, Sansa and Jeyne made her stand her on a stool and began to apply cloth to her. Arya found this a good opportunity to practice her water-dancer skills and stood on the toes of her left foot but Sansa told her to stop and to behave in a ladylike manner.

“Why are you making a dress for me? I already have one.”

“You are a princess, you must have many dresses,” Jeyne said and wrapped a ribbon around her waist. Arya frowned. She was displeased that Robb, the Young Wolf she’d heard so much about, had behaved like some silly prince from silly songs and had married for love right in the middle of the war. If only he’d married Dacey Mormont or someone like her! (Dacey had brought the ransom for Arya to the Brotherhood without Banners and Arya had used the occasion to try and hire herself as Dacey’s squire – unsuccessfully as yet, but she was full of hope). But no, Robb went and married a dark-haired Sansa!

“And you are the Queen,” Arya riposted, “you shouldn’t sew.”

“You see, Jeyne, even a child knows how the king’s wife should behave,” a woman that Arya had seen at the high table said in a honeyed voice. She was probably Jeyne’s mother.

Sansa measured Arya’s height with another ribbon.

“Would Your Grace care for some pretty ballads?”

Jeyne, who’d drawn herself together at her mother’s words, gave Sansa a grateful look.

“If you could be so kind, Your Royal Highness”.

Sansa wrapped another ribbon around Arya’s chest and sang:

“Three knights were a-coming through forest so green

Hey-ho, the wind and the rain…”

Three songs past, after Arya had been measured in all directions, Sansa allowed her to come down from the stool and take a walk at the castle.

She couldn’t be a ghost in Riverrun – everyone noticed her, bowed to her and called her “Lady Arya”. At first it made her startle and press herself to the walls. But then she understood she had nothing to be afraid of: all the people in this castle, from lords to stable-boys, were her brother’s men. She could be Arya Stark here. She ran downstairs, poked her nose into the kitchens, got a hot blueberry tart, gulped it whole and spent some time sitting on the stairs and licking her sticky dark-blue fingers clean. She looked into the smithy where an unfamiliar bald smith was making a horseshoe, and she remembered Gendry. She made conversation with the soldiers in the court, asked them about the course of war, enquired whether Dacey Mormont needed a squire, borrowed a short wide knife, made some strokes and gave it back – the hilt wasn’t handy enough.

The drawbridge went down with a creak, hooves sounded on it. Arya looked at the riders, saw one of them jump from a huge black courser, open his visor, take his flask and drink lustily. She saw the burns on his face. It was the Hound.

She looked around but the soldier kept sitting and chatting. Arya sat closer to one of them, pressed herself to the sheath on his belt and took the knife out. She rose carefully, not looking at anyone, and went across the court. Calm as water. A step, a step. She couldn’t reach his throat. Another step, and another yet. The best place to strike was the back, but he was wearing armor. Fierce as a wolverine. One more step. But if he took his helmet off, she’d be able to step on the block of wood nearby and hit upwards under his jaw. He took it off. Swift as a deer. Another step.

The black courser snorted and shook his head, the Hound turned to him and the knife struck not his open throat but his armored shoulder.

The Hound swung to Arya, knocked out the knife from her hand and lifted her in the air. She screamed with rage.

“Kill him!”

The soldiers exchanged glanced and laughed.

“Kill him, that’s an order! He serves Queen Cersei, he killed my friend, he killed Mycah, he must be put to death!”

“Arya!”

At the sound of this voice Arya went limp in the Hound’s arms. It seemed that Mother was very displeased at her.

“Put my sister on the ground, please,” the voice said, and Arya turned her head in stupefaction. It wasn’t Mother, it was Sansa. Sweet, gentle Sansa.

She was so stunned that she allowed herself to be taken by the hand and led away. On the way she kept staring into Sansa’s face, trying to ascertain that it was really Sansa and not some skinchanger usurping Mother’s voice.

Sansa led her to some room where sheets were lying on the shelves and said in an angry but unmistakably her own voice, “Don’t you dare do this again. Sandor Clegane pledged his fealty to Robb. He’s one of us now.”

“He killed Mycah!” Arya exclaimed.

She expected Sansa to say it had been all Mycah’s fault, like that time in the Red Keep, but Sansa answered, “I know.”

Arya bit her lip. It was more then she’d been hoping for, but yet not enough. “He cut him into pieces and put into the sack like… like some meat!”

“I once saw him cut a man’s arm off,” Sansa said in an even voice. “It was in King’s Landing. The mob on the streets rebelled and that man wanted to grab me. One woman, Lollys Stockworth, was found only the next morning, raped fifty times, and Tyrek Lannister was never found at all and nobody knows what befell him. Sandor Clegane went back for me and saved my life. And then, during the Battle of Blackwater, he came back for me and took me from the Reed Keep.”

Arya began worrying the corner of a sheet. “He still killed Mycah.”

“Yes, he did. He’s not a true knight. He’s… coarse, like sackcloth, but you’ll put anything around you when you’re cold. There were many knights at court, handsome, noble and courteous knights, and they all stood and watched me beaten, and they would beat me when Joffrey ordered them to. And what about you – all the time you were on the run, did only the perfect people help you?”

“Yoren wanted to take me to the Wall. He defended me from outlaws and from the Queen’s men. He stunk and had lice.”

The mention of lice made Sansa wince but only slightly so.

“Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

“Gods rest his soul.”

Arya made the sheet into a plait. “All right, I won’t kill your Hound,” she muttered reluctantly. “But I still hate him!”


	9. SANSA

Sansa lifted the green dress and proudly showed it to Jeyne. The neck was trimmed with dark-green velvet ribbon, the identical ribbon was woven around the waist, the bodice was embroidered with strawberry flowers and on the skirt Sansa put little stitched red berries.

“Such skill you have!” Jeyne exclaimed admiringly.

“My poor hands,” Sansa signed affectedly. “And for what? I can imagine the face Arya’ll make when she finds out I intend to dress her like a girl. I had to take all the frills from her grey dress, but this time I’m not going to waver. She must look decent when Lord Frey sees her for the first time.”

“I’m not sure Lord Frey cares about her looks.”

“Of course he doesn’t, but Mother says that Lord Frey loves when people show their respect for him. If Arya is dressed prettily and tries to behave, Lord Frey will see that Robb respects him. I’ve never imagined that Arya would find a husband before I did!”

Sansa stopped suddenly, blinked and pressed the corners of her eyes with her fingers. Jeyne hugged her fearfully.

“Darling, don’t cry! I’m sure Robb will find a wonderful husband for you!”

Sansa smiled though her tears.

“Oh, that’s not the reason. I just thought that I’d have to embroider a new maiden’s cloak for Arya because our ancestral cloak burned in Winterfell… Silly me. My brothers died there, and Ser Rodrik Cassel, and Maester Luwin, and maybe even Old Nan and Hodor and yet I cry about some cloak. But you see, Jeyne, when I was five Mother showed me that maiden’s cloak and said that someday I’ll wear it at my wedding. I would steal to the storerooms, put it on and imagine being married to a handsome prince with golden hair…”

Jeyne patted her head. Sansa took a deep breath and fought back the tears. After she came to Rivverun she’d tried to cry less. Wolves don’t weep. She also was distracted by a sudden idea.

“How did you marry Robb if the Starks’ cloak was in Winterfell?”

Jeyne smiled dreamily.

“Didn’t I tell you? It was very beautiful. I put my best dress on, pink silk with Myrish lace. Robb had said that Stark pray to the old gods and he didn’t want to be wed in the sept, so we went to the godswood. Our heart-tree is an old big oak, I used to climb it and hide in the branches when I was little, and we gave our vows in front of that oak. Robb was still suffering from his wounds and two of his lords had to carry him to the godswood on crossed arms, but he stood by himself in front of the tree. You are right, he had no Stark’s cloak so he put his battle-cloak around me. He said it was not arms that mattered, the main thing was that he was taking me under his protections and swearing to keep me warm as had been the custom of Children of the Forest since the days when people had neither lords nor arms.”

For some reason Sansa remembered how Sandor gave her his cloak the day Joffrey ordered to strip her. “Such a beautiful wedding!” she said sincerely. “Just like in a song! ‘Tis a pity I didn’t see it.”

“And we won’t see Lord Edmure’s wedding as well,” Jeyne sighed.

Sansa bitterly regretted not being able to go to the wedding at the Twins. There were sure to be dances, and bards, and ladies in beautiful gowns, and sweet cakes, and maybe even a tourney the next morning. But a true lady should never complain when denied an entertainment, so Sansa smiled and said, “It is probably going to be a modest wedding, they say Lord Frey is very miserly. And I wouldn’t want to go to the Twins, I didn’t like Ser Merrett at all, and his father might be even worse. Robb cares about us, that’s why he leaves us at Riverrun where no one will do us harm”.

Jeyne nodded. “Of course he does. But Mother is still displeased, she believes he is ashamed of me.”

For the umpteen time Sansa was reminded that she disliked Lady Sybell.

“There is nothing shameful in defending the castle when your king and husband is away”.

Instead of calming Jeyne these words frightened her.

“Sansa, but I won’t be able to defend Riverrun if it’s attacked!”

“Of course not. But Uncle Brynden can defend it, that’s why he stays in Riverrun as well, and the whole garrison will be there. No one is going to attack us, and soon Robb will bring Lord Frey’s host from the Twins and we’ll have nothing to fear.”

Sandor Clegane was staying in Riverrun as well. He was not allowed to go to the wedding at the Twins as he’d promised to cut Ser Merrett’s tongue out and feed it to Lord Frey. Sansa remembered that and shivered. In her favorite songs noble knights often defeated villains to restore the honor of some fair and virtuous maid, but they did it on tourneys or on the battlefields, and they didn’t cut tongues out –further proof that life wasn’t a song. And each time Sansa thought about that gruesome promise she remembered that there were many lords in Robb’s host, lords who had revered and loved her father, who’d pledged their fealty to her brother and had known her since the days she toddled, and they were going to eat the bread of Lord Walder Frey who’d slandered her out of spite. Only Sandor Clegane was ready to defend her, and he wasn’t even a knight.

“Let’s go to the fire tonight,” she suggested. “I’ve been meaning to for a while. The lords will be glad to see the queen sitting next to them and listening to their stories.”

At nightfall the lords, knights and foot soldiers used to gather near the fires at the Riverrun court, drinking, joking and spinning yarns. To tell the truth, Sansa had no great desire to go there, she suspected that those yarns were not exactly suitable for a true lady’s ears, but those lords and knight were risking their lives to avenge her father and to win a throne to her brother, and Sansa deemed it her duty to be courteous to them.

In the evening they both sat next to Dacey Mormont. The men at the fire were throwing around a rag ball stuffed with sand. The person who was hit by the ball had to tell a story or sing a song. Lucas Blackwood told about how Brynden Rivers lost his eye fighting his brother on the Redgrass Field. Smalljon Umber began singing the song about the six maids in the pond but everyone asked him to stop after the first verse as he was hopelessly out of tune. Wendel Manderly told a story about a fisherman who fell in love with a mermaid with green hair and skin whiter then sea foam, a tale so beautiful Sansa was on the verge of tears. Robyn Flint told nothing, he simply took a gold coin from Donnel Locke’s ear, grinned and threw the ball at Jeyne. Dacey held her arm and not so much caught as took the ball from the air. She sang the song about a bear and a maiden fair, laughed at all the jokes about Mormonts and bears, screwed up her eye and threw the ball into the darkness.

“Watch where you aim, woman,” a raspy voice grumbled and Sansa pressed closer to Jeyne.

“Don’t be such a big target,” Dacey answered merrily. “Your turn.”

“All right, listen. Once upon a time, in the ancient days, when the Andals had just come from the east, one of them, a young tall knight, around my height, got drunk and fell asleep in the bushes. And he must’ve been pretty tight because he’d forgotten to lace his breaches before he fell asleep. And he dreamed about his lady, so…”

“Watch your mouth, dog, there’s you queen and your princess present,” Greatjon Umber interrupted.

Sansa felt herself blushing. “I’m sure that none of my brother’s men will say anything that his wife and sister can’t hear.”

Sandor laughed raspily.

“You heard that? She is _sure_. Well, if her Royal Highness permits, I’ll go on. During that time, the Children of the Forest still lived in these woods. They were small, barely reaching a grown man’s knee, had pointed ears and worshiped trees. The very day the knight had fallen asleep in the bushes coincided with a special feasting day of the Children of the Forest; it was a day where they would choose the best tree, adorn it with ribbons and dance around it.”

“Those southrons are so funny,” Dacey said in a loud whisper.

“The Children of the Forest went to the clearing, saw the knight and the wood growing from his breaches. They decided to seek no further, they adorned that wood with ribbons and danced around it all night long.”

Men around the fire sniggered.

“In the morning the knight woke up with a heavy head. He rose with difficulty, turning to the bushes to water them, and then he noticed the colored ribbons. He looked at the thing in his hand and said: ‘Well, mate, I don’t know where you’ve been but it’s nice to see that you’ve earned the lady’s favor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on that ribald note I leave this text to pick it up after my vacations. I promise I'll be back.


	10. SANDOR

He woke up when someone entered his room.

“You’re a light sleeper,” Blackfish said calmly. His voice made Sandor lose any sleep he had left. He reached for his sword and breeches.

“Lannisters?”

“No, not yet. We shall see lions and stags under those walls, but not tonight.”

“Then what?”

“One of Ser Patrek Mallister’s men managed to escape, he sent a raven.”

Escape? Patrek Mallister had been among the lords who had left for the wedding at the Twins.

“Were they ambushed?”

“Yes. A wedding feast of bread, salt and blood.”

Now Sandor knew why the Blackfish’s voice sounded so strange. “Lord Frey?”

“Lord Frey has put a curse upon himself and his house. There is no man left in the Seven Kingdoms who won’t spit in his face”.

Sandor smirked. “Write that down, milord, and sell it to some bard. It would make a pretty ballad – until the bard is caught and Joffrey orders his fingers and tongue cut off. One escaped, what about the others?”

“No one knows. I hope for the best but… he writes that he saw the direwolf dead in the yard.”

“Pity, that was one clever beast. Tell me, Ser Brynden, I can hear neither the clank of weapons nor the wails of women, was I the first man you woke to tell the news?”

“Yes. Pack your things, you’re taking Lady Sansa to the Vale of Arryn.”

Sandor clasped his belt and sheathed his sword.

“Why?”

“She is Robb’s heir, Queen-in-the-North, if Lady Jeyne isn’t with child. She’ll be safe in the Vale of Arryn, Lysa won’t give up her niece to Joffrey. And later, when the time comes, the North will rise for their Queen.”

“Ain’t she a lucky little bird? No, Ser Brynden, what I asked is why it was me you chose to wake. I’m a turncloak, a Lannister dog, why not entrust the Queen-in-the-North to some noble knight?”

Blackfish passed his hand over his tired face. “Because a noble knight would sell her for a bag of gold and the royal pardon. The war is lost, Clegane, and any man I trust today tomorrow will search for the way to suck up to the winning side.”

“Any man but me”.

“Any man but you. Joffrey may forgive lords who rebelled against him and knights who fought him, but he’ll flay you alive regardless of the prisoner you take to him.”

Sandor put his cloak on. “I cannot find the word to express how touched I am by your trust in me, ser.”

The little bird was waiting in the stables, and one look at her face, troubled but not tear-stained, was enough to see that the Blackfish had told her nothing. A wise decision, but Sandor still wished he could take Ser Brynden by the beard and hit his head against the wall.

There was a barrel of apples in the corner of the stables. The little bird took one, fed it to her grey mare then gave a hesitant look to the Stranger.

“May a give him a treat?”

“You may try. He’s not liable to bite more then three fingers at once.”

The girl looked worriedly at her gloved hand, then at the black stallion, and took two apples at once. Sandor held Stranger’s reins tighter, but it seemed as if the horse wasn’t properly awake yet – he carefully took one apple after another from her open palm, and only when crunching on the second did he realized that a strange person had dared to approach him and bared his teeth threateningly.

“’Tis cold,” the little bird said when they rode out of the gates. “Winter is coming.”

Sandor thought grimly that winter wasn’t coming to Riverlands yet, but in the Mountains of the Moon it was probably getting colder by the hour, and he was about to ride to those mountains together with a mollycoddled child. And to fight the mountains clans on his own. He had heard that Lady Catelyn lost half of her party taking the Imp to her sister and that had been in summer.

By noon they saw a village large enough to have a brothel. Sandor stopped, dismounted, ordered the little bird to dismount as well. He linked his fingers, “Put your foot here, I’ll help you mount my horse”.

The girl moved back.

“Thank you s… Sandor, I’m accustomed to my mare.”

“Your mare would allow anyone with an apple to come near. Put your foot on my hands, I’m telling you.”

She climbed awkwardly to the saddle. Sandor patted the indignant Stranger’s neck and took a strap.

“If men with knives and swords come near you, don’t be afraid and grab the reins tighter. Stranger will kick to death anyone who approaches, what you have to do is not to fall. I’ll tie you to the saddle, just in case. If you see a man with a bow and arrows, spur the horse as hard as you can, he’ll outrun any pursuit, and I’ll track you down afterwards. Have no fear, sit tight, I’ll be back soon.”

He took a loaf of grey bread from his bag, cut a piece and began chewing it vigorously. Then he put the softened crumb on the left side of his face to hide the burns. As he turned to the little bird, she shrieked.

“A sight for sore eyes, right?” Sandor tried to grin and felt the crust pull at his cheek. “It’s not every day that you see a man with half his face ravaged by grayscale. Let’s just hope those villagers have never seen a thing like that either.”

“Why?”

“Because this muck looks like grayscale a much as a horse looks like a cat.”

He found the brothel easily, not so much by the sign with a red heart daubed on it as by the closed shutters – the whores wake up late. He knocked and the sleepy mistress opened the door.

“Good day to you, good man. Sit down, drink some wine, I’ll call the girls. Which to you like best: blond, red-headed, skinny or buxom?”

“There’s no need to wake anyone,” he said without crossing the threshold. “I have a different business here, mistress. You see, my mother’s been a widow for many years, and now there’s this man courting her and something might come out of it. It’s only that her hair is getting grey and, you see, no man wants an old wife. If you have something to dye over the grey hair…”

The mistress pulled in her cheeks.

“What color is your mother’s hair?”

“Black, like mine.”

“Bad, there’s no herb for the color black. If it were red… I’ll sell you some nut-galls, but they make the hair dull. Every morning, after she brushes her hair, let her rub her head with a candle, for the lustre, but mind you, it must be a wax-candle, not tallow.”

As he was walking back through the woods he heard the little bird talking to someone. He made a few steps, hand on the hilt of his sword. He listened closely, stopped and laughed soundlessly.

“You’re a good horse, a clever horse,” the little bird was chirping. “Your master will come back soon and we’ll go far far away. Now stand still, would you like me to sing for you?”

She sang the ballad of Florian and Jonquil and Sandor listened to it, leaning into the tree. In the middle of the third couplet Stranger farted loudly, something fell on the grass with a plop and the air smelled of horseshit.

“You are a very discourteous horse,” the little bird said severely. “Just like your master. But you will defend me if you have to and I forgive you.”

Sandor came from behind the trees.

“Is milady bored and would like some king’s men for company?”

“You’re back!” the little bird exclaimed happily.

“Course I’m back. Almost lost my way in those woods, but you were making such a din I just followed your voice.”

The girl was about to retort something but instead pouted. She said in a very polite voice, “I was glad to be of assistance, ser.”

Sandor grumbled and took her from the saddle.

“Take that pot and bring some water from the spring. I’ll make a fire. You need to dye your hair.”

“Why?”

_Because you are the Queen-in-the-North now and your red head is worth its weight in gold._

“Because your uncle said so. You must not be recognized. Remember, my name’s Sam, yours is Beth.” He instantly regretted choosing that name but didn’t want to change it either. “You’re my sister, I’m taking you to the Salptans, our uncle lives there. Understand?”

“Yes… brother Sam.”


	11. ARYA

Arya’s stomach hit the water so hard she had to struggle for breath. Her skirt became wet instantly and wrapped around her legs. Arya flailed her arms, turned several times unable to distinguish between up and down. Black icy water closed over her.

A light blinked and disappeared. That way is up, Arya thought and thrashed her arms. Blood was hammering in her temples, she was out of breath, the wet dress was restricting the movement of her legs, pulling her down. She inhaled, choked on water, coughed and emerged.

A burning arrow shot past her and fell into the water with a hiss.

“Can you see anything?” a rough voice asked from above.

“Fuck-all. Go on, shoot another!”

_They are looking for me_ , Arya thought. _I need to dive, or they’ll notice me and catch me_.

But she couldn’t make herself dive. There was no air under the water. “Calm as still water,” she whispered, “calm as still water.” But the water wasn’t still, it caught Arya and dragged her right into the pier.

“There she is, shoot!” someone yelled from above. Arya closed her eyes and dived.

In the darkness she hit something rough and scratched her palms and her cheek. Her head broke the surface of the water; the next moment she was swept over and hit the stone again. The pier the bridge was standing on was covered with slippery slime and sharp shells. Arya clutched at the uneven stone, scraping her hands, and tasted duckweed and blood.

She could hear terrible screams and a savage roar. “Well done, Grey Wind,” she whispered. Someone let the direwolf out, that was good, Grey Wind was going to kill them all and save Robb. But the roar ceased suddenly, the direwolf whined and grew still. Arya bit her fist to stop herself from crying, and water dragged her from her pier and carried her on.

She emerged for a moment, gasping for air. The foam swept over her and she went underwater again. She couldn’t move her legs. Something hit her in the back of her head, she screamed and swallowed water. A black and terrible thing floated past her.

_It’s a log_ , Arya thought, _just a silly piece of wood_. And then she had another thought. _It’s a log, the current carries it. If a grab it, the river will carry me away all on its own_. Her legs were still entangled in her skirt, but she made several strokes, clutched at the log and heaved a breath.

She had thought she’d be terribly bored at the wedding, because before they had left Sansa had ordered her to behave herself and to remember the bride’s gown, the impression the bride would have on Uncle Edmure, the dresses Lord Frey’s daughters would wear, the dishes at the table and the music at the feast. Yes, and Arya’s own betrothed.

Arya’s own betrothed, luckily, hadn’t been at the feast, but Lord Frey, old, wrinkled and ferret-like, mentioned his name – Elmar – and Arya hadn’t been able to swallow a bite with worry. Elmar Frey, page to Lord Bolton! The very one who used to brag about marrying a princess! Arya could imagine the face this Elmar would make when he’d see his princess was none other then Nan the cup-bearer. And of course he would tell everyone about the Weasel soup, Arya had no doubts that Elmar was a snitch. _Sansa will pretend she has no sister at all_ , she thought. She imagined what would Mother say and it her stomach churn. Lord Frey would surely decide that he couldn’t marry Elmar to a girl who had done such bad things, and Robb wouldn’t get his alliance, and hateful Joffrey would win…

Then she forgot Elmar because she noticed Lord Bolton himself.

Mother repeatedly told her to stop twitching and biting her lips, but Arya couldn’t keep still. She retained no memory of the bride, or the wedding gown, or the food at the feast. Before the bedding began Mother sent her to bed. Any other day Arya would’ve resented being treated like a child and would’ve hid in some dark corner to see everything, but all she had wished for was to leave the table. She had nodded obediently, ran to her room and threw herself on the bed without bothering to undress and began to think.

Her thoughts led to nothing and she couldn’t sleep either. Down below music began to play. Arya was surprised – she believed that everyone had gone to sleep already – and then she recalled that Sansa had told her to memorize all the bards at the wedding and the songs they’d sing. She left her room and went towards the great hall to listen.

She stood at the doorway just the moment Dacey Mormont was hit by an axe to her stomach.

The memory of that sight made Arya shiver and she hugged the log tighter.

There had been blood everywhere, lots of it, and dead men on the floor. An arrow had protruded from Robb’s arm. Someone shot at arrow at him! Arya snatched a knife from the table and looked around in search of the enemy, but Mother saw her and screamed in a terrible voice: “Arya, run!”

She ran.

_They can’t kill Mother_ , she was thinking now, pressing her cheek to the log. _They’ll take her hostage, like Sansa, and will keep her in prison, no, not in prison, in a chamber and then we’ll set her free. They killed Dacey because Dacey was a warrior, warriors get killed at war, but not Mother. They can’t kill her._

She looked back. The Twins were far behind, she could see no lights. Arya felt her legs growing numb from cold water. _I need to get to the bank_ , she thought, but which way was the bank? The Green Tooth wasn’t at its widest yet. It gained its full might closer to the Mountains of the Moon but at its narrowest it was so wide that a tired and shivering ten-year-old couldn’t hope to swim from its middle to its bank. Arya told herself to listen with her ears. At first it she could only water splashing at the log. But when she listened carefully she could hear a very distant, sad and lonely sound coming from the right – a wolf’s howl.

_A wolf means a forest_ , Arya thought. _A forest means a bank. I’ll swim to the right_. She clutched the log with her right hand and began stroking with her left.

She swam for such a long time, so long she nearly became sure that she had been wrong, that she was in the middle of the Green Tooth where she’d drown, as something wet lashed at her face. Arya let go of the log and grabbed the branches of an ivy-tree growing over the steep bank.

It took her some time to climb the bank, but she did manage to get there at the end. She found a wide space between the tree-roots, took her wet dress off, wrung it out, hanged it on a branch and lay on the ground. _I won’t sleep_ , she told herself, _I’ll simply wait for the sunrise_. She fell asleep before she finished that thought.

In her dream she was running through the forest, her ears pricked, her nose sniffing the wet smell of the river. She ran on the sandbank till her paws were buried in the sand and stopped. Some dark thing was bobbing in the water near the bank. She smelled the air, whined and moved forward carefully. Water was already dragging the dark thing farther on, but she took its arm in her jaws and dragged it on the bank carefully. The woman’s hair was covered with sand. Arya nudged her with her nose once, twice, turned her on her back, licked her face and whined again, but the woman lay still, looking listlessly into the night sky. Arya sniffed her once more, sat on her hind legs and howled. Far from there, in the North, her three brothers answered her, and they kept calling to each other, bemoaning their loss.

Arya woke up when the sun was already up and shining in her face. She pressed her knees to her chest, hugged herself and closed her eyes. _They will search for me_ , she thought. _They couldn’t in the dark but they can now_. She rose, passed her fingers through her hair and felt the edge of her skirt. The cloth was still wet but Arya decided to dress anyway; a green dress would make it harder to spot her in the woods. Suddenly she gasped, covered her mouth with both hands and rushed to the nearest bushes. Her skirt was sprinkled with blood.

After her vomiting stopped, Arya bent over the steep bank, washing her face and rinsing her mouth. Then she went to the branch on which the dress was hanged, took it of and covered her face in the wet cloth. It wasn’t blood, it was strawberries embroidered by Sansa.

For a few hours she went downstream, trying to keep close to the bank so as not to lose her way, but yet not too close to the water as to be seen from a passing boat. She did see a couple of boats but the people in them looked like fishermen or merchants. She stumbled upon a raspberry thicket once and stayed there for a while, picking the overripe sweet berries from the prickly twigs. Her fingers became stained red with juice. She shuddered, her stomach roiling again, but told herself, _It’s only the stupid berries_ and kept eating. When she was full she tore a piece of bark from the nearest birch, rolled in up and put some berries into it.

When Arya reached the sandbank, the sun was at the zenith. Gigantic wolf footprints followed from the woods to the river and back again, to the dead woman lying on the sand. Arya was able to recognize only by her dress.

Closer to the woods, where the sand was light and dry, Arya measured the space with her steps, drew a wide rectangle with a twig, took a sharp bough and began digging.

It was harder then she’d thought. She was loosening the sand, gathering it in her skirt and throwing it out of the pit. Soon her fingers began to hurt, her ears and mouth became clogged with sand which crunched nastily in her teeth, and there was a small blister on her right hand. Arya sighed, left the pit and went to the river. She washed her hands, put her head in the water, washed her ears and spent some time the drinking cold water which smacked slightly of slime.

As she looked behind her shoulder she believed herself mistaken for a moment – there was some unfamiliar woman lying on the sand, grey-haired, with a scratched face. Arya ran to her, fell on her knees, took a good look at the woman’s face, then she bit her lip, turned away and walked towards the woods. There she sat behind the tree, took her bag of raspberries and began to eat. The berries were sticky and sickly sweet. That was when she remembered putting a piece of bread in her pouch last night, to give it to Grey Wind later. She dipped her hand into the pouch. The bread was sodden and had an unpleasant mouldy smell, but it was still bread. Arya picked in all up and licked her fingers clean. She dipped into the pouch once more and found a coin there.

It was the coin Jaqen H’gar had given her.

_Lord Frey_ , she whispered. _Ser Gregor. Dunsen. Polliver. Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler. Ser Illyn. Ser Meryn. King Joffrey. Queen Cersei_.

She put the coin back into the pouch and resumed her digging.


	12. SANDOR

The grey mare lost its shoe near the Lord Harroway’s Town. Sandor swore at it and at the little bird at length, took a stale heel of grey bread from his bag and began chewing vigorously. They had to find a smithy.

They’d avoided people till that day. Sandor didn’t not know what scared him most – someone recognizing the little bird or someone telling her the truth about the wedding at the Twins. Now and then, as they were sitting by the fire at night and the girl was humming some love ballad, Sandor even wished they were attacked. It had been a while since he’d killed someone.

The nearest smithy was at the inn at the crossroads. Sandor reminded the little bird her name was Beth, paid the smith and was about to be back on the road when the innkeeper told him, “Why don’t you stay the night? Your sister would be glad to sleep in bed.”

The little bird chirped politely that she wasn’t tired at all and simply adored sleeping on the ground by the fire. Sandor spat and paid for the room. Naturally, it had only one bed, so he’d end sleeping on the floor anyway, but who bloody cared?

As luck would have it, no one at the inn tried to make conversation with them. The grey crust on Sandor’s face repelled people as good as his burns used to do. Whoever met his gaze by chance would shudder, look down and presently find something to do. The innkeeper gave him and the little bird a place at the farthest table, put a bowl of boiled cabbage and blood sausages and a jug of beer in front of them and went to banter with the passerby merchants.

The merchants were talking at great length that the winter was coming, the price of bread was rising, but, they say, in King’s Landing you could get good returns from silks, aye, and from velvet, and that Kingsroad wasn’t safe unless you had ten sellswords with you, and it was a lord’s duty to keep robbers in check, but who was the lord of Riverlands these days, anyway, did you know? They had a lot of respect for King Joffrey, aye, they did, but ‘twas a foul business at the Twins… They put their heads down and began to whisper:

“… they say young Stark turned into a direwolf and ripped three men’s throats…”

“… people say they saw the human body with the wolf’s head…”

“… and didn’t they see the needles that sewed the head to the body, no?”

“… they say Lady Carelyn was drowned in the Trident…”

“… no she wasn’t, they cut her throat and threw her body into the river…”

“… the people who sailed the Green Tooth on a boat say they saw a host of drowned men, all floating downstream and looking at the sky…”

“… it can’t be all from the Twins, they didn’t have enough guests there…”

“… enough or not, people say the floor in the Great Hall is still red…”

“… Lord Frey can cover it with gold if he chooses, Lannisters paid him a pretty penny…”

“Are you unwell, my dear?” the innkeeper asked gently.

Sandor gritted his teeth and made himself look at the little bird. She was white as milk, her eyes were as empty as the day Joffrey had dragged her to look at her father’s severed head. The girl seemed not to hear the innkeeper at all.

“You, good fellows,” Sandor rasped, “could you be so kind and not talk about severed heads when there’s a pregnant woman here?”

There were five merchants and ten men armed with swords and bows, but none of them dared to take offence that a vagrant with a ruined face was telling them what to talk about.

“We didn’t know, you see,” muttered one of them and drew his head into his shoulders.

“Ah, you didn’t kno-o-ow,” Sandor mimicked him. “Beth, go and lie down.”

He gave the little bird a stealthy nudge with his fist. She looked at him incomprehensively, as if she didn’t remember who he was, then rose without saying a word and went toward the stairs. Her steps were so heavy and careful as if she was indeed about to give birth tomorrow.

Sandor took his spoon and began eating. The dinner was already paid for and he didn’t believe the little bird had any appetite for blood sausage left.

He lingered below on purpose, letting her cry all she wanted. When the cabbage was eaten, he went to the stables, to check on horses, gave a piece of bread to the grey mare and stood there patting Stranger’s neck till Stranger got bored and bit his finger.

The little bird was sitting on the bed and looking at the wall. He could see by her face that she hadn’t shed a single tear. It was even worse than Sandor had feared.

 _And now Gregor’s lessons come handy_ , he thought mirthlessly. He went to her, took her hand and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. The girl squealed, tried to wrench her hand free, Sandor pressed it harder and rubbed her knuckles again till she burst into tears.

There was no stopping her then. She spent the night in Sandor’s arms, sobbing on his chest, weeping for her mother, brother, sister, uncle, northerners, riverlords and a huge direwolf who used to sleep in her bed and beg for bread.

She fell asleep after midnight and Sandor could take a breath and move his numb legs. All night long he was wriggling to hide from the little bird his erection. She smelt of ash, nut-gall, wax and tears, both her teats were pressed to his chest. He called his manhood _a heartless bastard_ and tried to rise to go and jerk off behind some shed, but the girl clutched his hand in her sleep. He had to lie down again, embrace her and think about something repugnant.

She slept till noon and wept after she woke up. Her little face was puffed from tears, her nose was red, her eyes almost disappeared into the folds. Sandor told the innkeeper that his sister felt sick, refused the offer to call a maester or a midwife and paid for another night. They left the next morning, before the dawn.

Sandor expected the little bird to cry again but she was silent. When they halted at noon she refused to eat even after Sandor raised his voice at her. The day before she ate one apple and drank a mug of cabbage brine, the innkeeper’s medicine for morning sickness. Sandor began to worry.

“I’ll force you if I have to,” he promised. “Eat now”.

“It was me who told the Queen that Father was going to take us away from King’s Landing,” she answered at cross-purpose.

“So, you’re a fool. Eat, I’m telling you”.

“I told nobody about it, not even Mother.”

“I take it back, not such a fool after all. You keep quiet about that.”

“If I told them, Robb would’ve executed me like he did Lord Karstark.”

“No he wouldn’t, your customs forbid spilling the blood of your kin.”

“The Gods punished me for betraying my family.”

Sandor spat into the fire.

“Still a fool. Do you think the Gods killed all your family because you tattled to the queen? Do you believe the Father is someone like Joffrey, or what?”

The little bird stared at him.

“And you don’t? Your brother burned your face and the Gods let him. How many murdered people have we seen on the road? The Gods didn’t protect any of them. Father was executed, Robb was murdered, Lord Renly was murdered, Lord Stannis lost the Battle of Blackwater and all of his ships, and Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne. It means that the Gods love him. The Gods love Joffrey. That makes them the same as him.”

Sandor scratched his ear. This idea hadn’t crossed his mind before. He believed that gods should protect the innocent and punish the guilty, and as they didn’t, it proved that the gods didn’t exist. But Tywin Lannister definitely existed, as did Joffrey, and Gregor, and Lord Frey, and they rewarded the worthy and punished the guilty the way they saw fit. Mayhaps the gods themselves looked at fair and unfair the way Lord Frey did. After all, Rhaegar Targaryen had knighted Gregor, Tywin Lannister had given Gregor a host to command and had paid him generously, Gregor had the keep, lands, fame, glory. While Sandor was running about the Riverlands like a stray dog with a reward for his head and all the Seven Kingdoms knew him for a craven and a deserter, and when people saw his face they shuddered and looked at their feet. You didn’t have to guess long to see who was the favorite of the gods. Did that mean there was an omniscient and omnipotent Gregor sitting in heaven?

He looked at the little bird and nearly laughed with relief. No. Gregor couldn’t have made her. Gregor didn’t have enough in his stupid little brain to even gasp at the wonder of her. If fact, Gregor couldn’t have made anything at all, neither sea, nor trees, nor horses or Red Dornish. His imagination was used only to invent tortures. And Joffrey was the same.

“You little dunce,” he said gently. “If the gods were like Joffrey then any men who neglected to go to the sept would be struck by thunder on spot. He wants people to kneel in front of him and to know he’s great and fearful, he doesn’t care about the rest. Now _eat_.”

The little bird hugged her knees and looked at the fire.

“Still, if I haven’t gone to the Queen, we’d have gone to Winterfell and nothing would’ve happened.”

“And when Theon Greyjoy captured Winterfell you’d be very glad of your wits, no doubt.”

The little bird shivered but said nothing.

Sandor gulped from his flask. He should moderate his drinking he thought. It would be a long way to the Bloody Gate and no taverns in the mountains.

“Listen,” he said heavily. “Remember how I told you about my sister? Her name was Beth. She was a good girl. Even Gregor loved her in his own Gregor way. And she loved me and always defended me from him, the best she could. One time we were sitting by the fireplace and I answered Gregor the wrong way, not obedient enough, and he decided to teach me a lesson. Beth rose to shield me and Gregor… he not so much hit her as swatted at her, as if she was a fly. She hit the wall and remained standing there. There was a hook sticking from that wall, she… her temple was pinned on it.”

The little bird pressed her palm to her mouth.

“Gregor didn’t intend to kill her, you see? Everyone agreed it wasn’t his fault, it just happened. If she didn’t rise to defend me, she’d be alive today. Her blood’s on me.”

Suddenly the girl jumped up. She looked ridiculously belligerent.

“It’s unfair! It was Gregor who killed your sister, not you, it wasn’t your fault!”

“Right,” Sandor agreed, “and it was Joffrey who ordered your father executed. Not you fault, not my fault, this world is full of shit is all. Eat, we have a long way up the mountains.”


	13. SANSA

Aunt Lysa didn’t look like Mother at all. Not only because she was shorter, fatter, paler, and her hair was the color of burned chestnut. Mother would’ve never told the people who brought her the last message of her dead sister to wait in the kitchens for several hours. Mother would’ve never received them sitting on the high throne and looking down haughtily. Mother would’ve embraced her.

Lysa Arryn’s gaze made Sansa feel that her cheeks were weather-beaten, her lips were chapped, her dyed hair was in stripes and her dress smelled of smoke and sweat. _I look like a beggar_ , she thought and felt like crying. She hadn’t cried at the Mountains of the Moon: not when her grey mare was killed by a falling boulder, not when a ragged stinky wilding put a knife to her throat, not when the guard at the Bloody Gate hadn’t wanted to let then through. She hadn’t cried since the day she found out about the wedding at the Twins, but now she felt her eyes swelling with tears. _Aunt Lysa thinks that I look like a beggar_.

“You look like Catelyn,” Aunt Lysa said disapprovingly. “What was Uncle thinking when he sent you to the Eyrie? Did anyone in the castle notice that you dye your hair?”

“No, Aunt. I said that I was very cold and didn’t take my headscarf off.”

“Well, thank gods at least for that. What would happen if someone told the King I was harboring a Stark? Uncle Brynden ought to have thought about _me_ , about the danger to Robin! But he had always loved Catelyn best. He left my service to rise against the lawful king, he demanded that I send my host to support the rebels, and now he sends me you! All for Catelyn, all for her!”

“I’m sorry you have suffered so much, Aunt.”

It was the voice Sansa had used before to say that she loved Joffrey and all her family were traitors. It had gained her only the careless disdain of the Queen, but Aunt Lysa proved to be much more trusting.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, suffered so much! Nobody knows what I went through, how hard it was! Father was so cruel to me! You have a kind heart, girl, this is good. Don’t cry, I’ll take care of you. After all, your brothers are dead, you are the heir to the North, someday you’ll be able to repay my kindness. You’ve been taught to be grateful, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“Don’t call me ‘Aunt’, people might guess who you are”.

“Of course, milady.”

Aunt Lysa smiled with contentment.

“Things will change soon, you see. Soon everything will be wonderful. I’ll order a room prepared for you, go.”

“Thank you, milady. I’m very grateful. Sandor will serve you well.”

“ _Him_?!” Aunt Lysa screeched.

Sandor smirked.

“Farewell, little bird.”

“Out!” Aunt Lysa yelled. “Out! Murderer, deserter, enemy to the crown! Get out of my castle and be thankful I don’t order to throw you out of the Moon Door! Get out!”

Sansa clutched Sandor’s hand as if he was already dragged to the mysterious Moon Door.

“Please, Aunt! He will serve you well! He saved me!” Sansa was about to tell that Sandor took her away from King’s Landing, but held her tongue just in time – it seemed that Aunt Lysa blamed him for that as well. “He saved me from the mountain wildings!”

Aunt Lysa pressed her hands to her chest and panted.

“Were you attacked by the mountain clans? Oh gods! Those terrible savages would give me not a moment of peace!”

“My poor Aunt! Oh, pardon me, I meant milady!”

“And did this… this man kill them?”

“He killed ten of them and wounded several more.” Sandor had killed only six to be fair but did not correct her.

Aunt Lysa pursed her lips. “I believe you are trying to deceive me, child. Mountain clans are numerous. He killed ten of them, and what did the others do, stood and watched?”

“The others dragged me from my horse,” Sandor explained calmly. “But you see, milady, those were so-called Burned Men, and they are so dumb they put their own body parts into the fire to show their valor. And when they saw my face, they decided I was the bravest warrior at the Mountains of the Moon, and to show their respect they let me go. They stole the gold they found on me, still.”

Aunt Lysa wrung her hands. “Oh, all right, all right… I’ll… give him money as a reward for saving you. And… food to take with him.”

“And if the Burned Men meet me on my way down, I’ll tear the head of their leader off with my bare hands and take his place. Thank you for your hospitality, milady. Let me go, little bird.”

Sansa clutched his hand harder. She couldn’t let him go, couldn’t tell him goodbye like she did to Mother, Robb, Arya, couldn’t stay all alone with this aunt who desired to be called “milady”.

“He can’t leave!” she exclaimed tearfully. “He… he…” _He’s all I have_. “He’s my husband!”

Aunt Lysa goggled and opened and closed her mouth several times without making a sound.

“What?! Are you trying to say that Catelyn let you marry this… this..?”

Sansa remembered why she hated lying so much: you always had to make up ten new lies to support the initial.

“When Sandor brought me to Riverran, there were rumors about us. People were saying he had taken my honor on the road. Then Mother decided that if no one wanted to marry me, I would become betrothed to Sandor. But when… when we were going to leave Riverran, Uncle Brynden made Sandor marry me before we left. So as not to besmirch my name for a second time.”

Aunt Lysa pressed her plump hands to her chest again.

“Oh, child. Oh, child. But at least you didn’t… he didn’t… You didn’t consummate this awful marriage?”

Sansa’s stomach hurt with terror. She was on a very slippery slope. She couldn’t say Sandor had done nothing to her, as she knew very well that an unconsummated marriage was void. So she had to say that he had and pray her aunt didn’t ask for details. But if he had bedded her every night on the way from Riverran to Eyrie… Sansa was definitely not prepared to explain why she wasn’t with child yet.

“Once,” she said bashfully. “It hurt and we… decided not to do it again till I’m fifteen. Then I’d be able to deliver a healthy baby.”

Aunt Lysa continued panting and crimpling the bodice of her gown. Sansa believed she had said enough, but, being an inexperienced liar, yielded to the temptation of additional detail.

“But I did… other things. Hands and mouth.”

She had no idea what kind of indecencies one could do with hands and mouth, but she had once heard Theon using these words to describe his visit to the Winter Town’s whores, and when she had asked Robb the meaning of that phrase afterwards, Robb had blushed like a rose and told her that wellborn girls were not to speak such words.

It seemed that nice girls were not, indeed, to speak such words. Aunt Lysa’s face became splotched with red.

“Oh, child,” she repeated helplessly. “Oh, child. What am I to do? I don’t know what to do with you. Such tribulations are bad for my health. I must think about it. How could Uncle Brynden do this to me?! What did you tell to the guards?”

“That I had a letter for Lady Arryn, nothing more.”

“You didn’t tell them your name or that man’s?”

“No, milady.”

“Good. Remember – I do not know you. Nor him. I am not obliged to know all the cut-throats in the Seven Kindsoms by sight! You’re a poor seamstress, he’s you husband, your name is…”

“Beth,” Sansa prompted, “and he’s Sam”.

“Let it be Beth, a silly name. Can you sew at least?”

“Yes, milady. Sew and embroider and make lace”.

“Thank gods for that. Tomorrow you’ll begin making my gown. I’ll order to have a room prepared for you. Don’t forget to call me Lady Lysa.”

The room they were given was small and cramped, it held only a wide bed, a plank chest and an ewer, there wasn’t even a doormat on the floor, but it was a room with a floor, a ceiling and walls, a warm room. Sansa put her bundle on the floor and was about to take her comb out of it when Sandor lifted her up in the air.

“What are you doing?” she asked in wonder.

“Hands and mouth,” he replied in a laughing voice. “You little fool.”

He kissed her lips.

A long time ago Sansa use to dream about the kiss of a handsome prince. She believed that were it to pass her heart would flutter with happiness like a little bird. But the prince from her dreams didn’t have a rough and prickly beard, he didn’t press his lips to her lips so hard, he didn’t grab her left breast, and, what’s more important, during those imaginary kisses Sansa had never felt she had made some horrible mistake.

Sandor threw her on the bed. For a moment Sansa believed he was going to lie on top of her but he remained standing. His face was terrible. If Sansa didn’t know him better she’d believe he was going to strike her.

“Why did you tell Lady Arryn I’m your husband?”

“Because she wanted to send you away from the castle!”

“Well, let her, why do you care?”

 _You’re all I have_ , Sansa thought. She used to have a family, parents, brothers, a sister, but all she had now was a grim ill-mannered man with a burned face. He was the only one who knew she was Sansa Stark, not Beth the seamstress. To let him go was the same as to let herself go.

Sandor snorted. “I see. You don’t want your dog to be put out in the cold. Kind mistress.”

Sansa was amazed to realize he would probably like to marry her in earnest, and called herself an idiot. How did she fail to see it before? If it were not for his scars she’d guessed sooner. She felt ashamed. Those awful burns didn’t stop him from being a man, from loving a maid. _I’m no better then Ser Boros Blount and all the rest who used to call him ‘dog’_ , she thought.

“We can be married, if you want,” she said.

Sandor stared at her from above.

“I’m never going to marry a rich and powerful lord, am I? I have no mother, no brother, and no North, whatever Lady Arryn says. I’m no one, Beth the seamstress. Why wouldn’t I wed a sellsword? ‘Tis a good marriage for Beth the seamstress.”

“You milksop.”

“What?”

“You’d marry me. Hands and mouth. You know, girl, if I get an itch I’ll go and pay a whore. She at least will pretend not to be disgusted by me.”

 _I wasn’t disgusted_ , Sansa thought, _I was surprised and scared_.

“You could’ve thanked me at least,” she said.

Sandor made a mock bow at her.

“Thank you, kind mistress!”

“Stop it! You saved me on the streets when the mob wanted to kill me, you took me from the Red Keep, you defended me in the Mountains of the Moon, I remember it and I’m very grateful to you. But I defended you too! I asked Robb to let you stay at Riverrun. I intercepted when you were about to be put on trial by fire. I didn’t let Lady Arryn send you away. If it were not for me, you’d be killed by outlaws, or your brother’s men, or the mountains clans, and you’ve never thanked me even once, you just keep calling me a fool!”

For the first time she saw Sandor lost for words. That was very pleasant. In order to strengthen her victory Sansa stood up, patted her dress with her palms and said in a condescending tone:

“I shall ask for hot water. I need to dye my hair and you could do with some bathing.”

“Beth, my little bird,” Sandor said gently, “who’d bring you, the poor seamstress, a bath to your room? Are you a lady? There are bathhouses for the likes of you.”

Sansa felt herself blushing. She took her bundle of clean underwear, got the nut-galls and the comb from the other bundle, straightened her back proudly and left the room in a majestic manner. To give Sandor his due, he laughed only after she closed the door behind herself.

 _If we were in a song, I would fall in love a knight who had saved me so many times_ , Sansa thought as she was squatting in a narrow basin and pouring lukewarm water over herself. _But life is not a song. I cannot love a man simply because it would sound good, or would be the right thing to do, or to please him. And I won’t marry him if he’s like that! If Father ever called Mother a fool or told her that he’d pay a whore, they’d never been happy._ She stretched to wash her back and nearly fell out of the basin.

When she came back to the room, Sandor wasn’t there. Sansa undressed, crept under the covers and tried not to worry about him. It was hard. She could keep telling herself that Sandor had simply gone out to get a drink, but in her mind’s eye she saw the armed guards storming into the room and dragging Sandor to the mysterious Moon Door.

He returned when Sansa was almost ready to get up, dress and go in search for him. When he appeared at the doorway Sansa nearly wept with relief, but the same moment she pulled the blanket to her chin. She was suddenly aware that she had only a thin shift on and that there was only one bed in the room. She had slept in Sandor’s embrace every night until they reached the Bloody Gate, but both of them had been fully dressed, and it was before he had kissed her lips.

“Don’t fret, I’ll sleep on the floor,” Sandor grumbled.

“You shouldn’t. I… I can sleep on the floor tonight.”

Sandor looked at her and shook his head.

“If I didn’t want to sleep so much I’d let you, but you’ll spend the whole night chirping that the floor is hard, won’t you? Oh, all right, the bed is wide enough for four, move to the edge.”

Sansa thought that if they were in a song Sandor would’ve put his naked sword between them, and for a first time in her life she was really glad that life wasn’t a song. She didn’t care to sleep near a sharp blade.

But there probably was a sword in the bed after all, because at night it was cut in two halves which were floating down the Trident, spinning, moving away from each other. Sansa tried to paddle closer but jerked her hand back in fright – there were dead bloodied faces looking at her from the water. Mother and Robb were sitting on their half not paying attention to Sansa, and Arya pulled her tongue at her. They were floating towards a dark castle: two towers connected by the bridge over the river. Joffrey was standing on the bridge, holding his crossbow. He took his aim, shot, a burning arrow pierced the bed between Mother and Robb, and the bedding took flame. Sansa screamed, Joffrey saw her, took his aim and shot her in the heart – and Sandor rolled her over without ceremony, like a bundle of dirty linen, till she was stopped by his shoulder.

“Stop that yelling, there are people trying to sleep here,” he whispered. Sansa sobbed, embraced him by the neck and fell asleep again.


End file.
